Inspectors downgrade Whittington A&E rating as NHS trust seeks funding to expand

A CQC report criticised the treatment of patients in corridors but acknowledged this was because of demand the A&E wasn’t designed to cope with

Whittington Hospital's accident and emergency department — Whittington Hospital’s accident and emergency department

Whittington Health NHS Trust wants to expand its emergency department – after inspectors criticised its performance.

The Archway-based hospital, which serves most of the western part of Haringey borough, this week revealed it was seeking government funding to significantly enlarge its accident and emergency (A&E) unit.

The trust will also soon be opening a new ‘same-day emergency care’ unit next to the A&E department which will treat people who need urgent care but do not need to stay in hospital overnight.

The department currently cares for around 110,000 seriously sick or injured adults and children each year, despite being designed in the 1970s to treat less than half of that number.

It comes after the Care Quality Commission (CQC), a watchdog for NHS services, downgraded Whittington Health from a ‘good’ rating to ‘requires improvement’ following an inspection in October, which itself came in response to safety concerns being raised with CQC.

CQC’s deputy director of hospitals said today (Friday 6th) that inspectors found “some people had to be cared for in corridors” at the Whittington, but largely blamed this on the inability of the current department to cope with increased demand.

Carolyn Jenkinson said: “When we inspected the emergency department, we found staff working very hard to meet people’s needs under very high pressure.

“The trust faced issues with the high number of people attending the department and delays in treatment or admission to the hospital, creating overcrowding. This isn’t something the trust could solve alone, and further support was needed from the local health and care system to address this.”

She continued: “Some people had to be cared for in corridors, but the trust had deployed extra staff to reduce the risks from this and staff were doing their best to keep people comfortable. “However, impacts on people’s safety and privacy remained. For example, staff weren’t always checking thoroughly for sepsis, which could be dangerous if someone began deteriorating.

“Despite this pressure, people said that staff were kind and supportive and made them feel safe, even at very busy times.”

Responding to the CQC report, as well as announcing the decision to expand the hospital’s A&E unit, Whittington Health NHS Trust chief executive Selina Douglas said: “We have known for a long time that crowding in our emergency department makes it harder to provide the high-quality and dignified care that our patients rightly expect.

“I want to be clear that this new space won’t give us all of the additional space that we need but it will help to ease crowding in the department whilst we plan for more significant, long-term changes.”

Sarah Wilding, chief nurse, added: “I am pleased that despite the challenges we face in our urgent and emergency care services the CQC recognise our caring staff and found that we continue to provide high-quality care, I want to pay tribute to my many hard-working colleagues for their care every day.

“The main areas of improvement the CQC identified can be traced back to the challenges of an emergency department that is treating more than double the number of patients than it was designed to cope with.

“We are working with NHS England and local partners to try to secure the funding we need to expand the size of our A&E department, but this will be a major long-term project that will need significant investment.

“In the meantime, we continue to make the improvements the CQC has recommended as quickly as possible.”

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